Daniel Coakley, who is recognized as the Philippines fastest sprinter in its history, has come to The Race Club for 10 days of specialty training. Daniel lives in Hawaii and has been training recently at Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida. Daniel has posted a personal best 50 meter freestyle (LC) time of 22.60 and hopes to reach the finals and possibly medal in the same event in China at the Asian Games this November. Nico Messer and Gary Hall Sr will be coaching Daniel in preparation for this event and to help him achieve his goals.
Philippines top Sprinter trains with The Race Club
Filed under: News | September 8th, 2010
Platinum Performance to the Rescue!
Filed under: Aqua Notes | August 27th, 2010
Ryan Lochte stole the show at the recent Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. Six gold medals and he came within a few tenths of his world record in the 200 IM, with a Lycra suit on! It was a very impressive performance, indeed. So what was the difference? What enabled Ryan to have such a stellar meet? Nutrition.
Apparently Ryan has changed his eating habits and it shows. We heard he gave up eating a lot of junk food and it shows. Yes, he was lean and mean and fast. I didn’t speak to Ryan nor ask him about his nutrition, but here is what was reported.
In 2008, during the Beijing Olympics, Lochte was quoted in the NY Times on line with the following. “Nutrition’s probably the last thing I worry about,” Lochte said. “It’s probably my downfall. I’ve been eating McDonald’s almost every meal here.”
This year, at the Pan Pacs, Lochte tells The New York Times, “I haven’t really been eating fast food. Before, I always thought it didn’t really matter what you put in your body because you burn so many calories. What I’ve learned is it does make a difference.“ Read the rest of this entry »
Where Is The Next Michael Phelps Coming From? Buffalo?
Filed under: Aqua Notes | August 16th, 2010
The other night I watched one of the most interesting races of the summer USA Swimming National Championships, Phelps vs Lochte in the 200 IM. This time Lochte got the win, although admittedly Phelps is not yet showing his best form. What was most noticeable to me, however, was how far ahead these two rivals were from the rest of the field, finishing several seconds ahead of third place. It begs the question, when two such talented swimmers are in the prime of their career at the same time, who will replace them when they retire?
Swimmers like Phelps and Lochte don’t come along every day. I can’t imagine anyone winning nine gold medals in the Olympics, but I didn’t think Spitz’s record of seven Olympic golds would be broken, either. One thing I am sure of is that there is an abundance of talented swimmers in America working their way up the ladder, dreaming of taking over the roles of Phelps and Lochte.
Most of the credit for creating this pipeline of talent should go to USA Swimming and the thousands of affiliated swimming clubs across America. It is not that the schools, YMCA’s and summer recreation leagues don’t have a role. They do. The real development of talent, however, is largely due to America’s swim clubs. Read the rest of this entry »
Fin-Alholics Anonymous
Filed under: Aqua Notes | June 28th, 2010
I admit it. I am addicted to fins. So I have decided to help other fin-aholics (I know you are out there) by creating these 12 steps to an aquatic life free from fins:
- We admitted we were powerless over fins, that our workouts had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than our bare feet could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of our coach, as we understood him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our swimming equipment. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s in his kick …
Filed under: Aqua Notes | May 29th, 2010
So I am swimming along in practice this morning, catching my breath between some short rest intervals, when I overheard the two women Fighting Manatees (our Masters team) in the lane next to me asking each other why I was able to go so fast. “I dunno”, one of them said…”but I think it is in his kick”.
The next few 50’s I spent pondering the comment, when suddenly, it dawned on me that I had heard those very words spoken in a song before.
I am dedicating this song to all of the swim coaches out there who believe, like I do, that the real secret weapon to fast swimming is in the legs. And to all those Masters swimmers and Triathletes who can’t quite figure out why they don’t swim as fast as the swimmer who started at age 6. And of course to the all of the great-swimmer wanna-be’s who were not blessed with big feet, flexible ankles or hyperextended knees. Read the rest of this entry »
Summer Training Camp
Filed under: Aqua Notes | May 17th, 2010
Sign up for a 2010 Race Club Training Camp at the University of Miami
It’s not too late to sign up for a Race Club summer training camp at the University of Miami. We will be offering three one-week sessions starting June 20 and ending on July 10. The camps are designed for competitive swimmers from 9 to 19 years old of any ability and are focused on intense training and preparation for the summer or fall seasons. Training intensity will be adjusted to the swimmer’s ability and experience level.
Here is a glimpse of what your day will be like at our Race Club camps. Swimmers will attend an early morning aerobic practice with head coach Christie Shefchunas of the University of Miami. Breakfast will be in the dining hall next to the dormitory, located just 5 minutes from the Olympic training pool. Swimmers will then rest and relax until 11 am. DVDs are shown on important techniques and drills from 11 to 12 noon. Lunch will be served at the dining hall. Daily afternoon practices will be conducted by Race Club head coach Gary Hall Sr. focusing on lactate sets, cross training, core and strength training and circuit sets. Dinner will be served at the dining hall. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sequel – Fundamentals of Fast Swimming
Filed under: Aqua Notes | April 7th, 2010
Many of you have enjoyed The Race Club’s original DVD, entitled The Three Styles of Freestyle. It has served as a great tutorial for our Race Club Campers to demonstrate that in swimming, there is not simply one right way to get to the end of the pool and back. Different stroke techniques are not only required for different swimmers, depending on their strengths or weaknesses, but also for different distances. To maximize efficiency, a swimmer must swim the 50 with a different technique than the 100 or 200, for example. Too many coaches try to pigeon hole swimmers into using one swim stroke, often trying to copy another great swimmer, such as Phelps or Coughlin, but it doesn’t always work out.
There are good scientific reasons why swimming techniques should differ for swimmers. I feel it is important for both swimmers and coaches to understand why they are trying to swim a certain way. It is as important to understand the reason for the commonalities of great swimmers as well as the reason for the differences. That is one of our goals for our campers. Read the rest of this entry »
Heroes
Filed under: Aqua Notes | March 15th, 2010
I sat about half way up the bleachers in the middle of Joe Perkins Natatorium at Southern Methodist University for the first preliminary session of the National AAU Swimming Championships in 1967. In the warm Spring afternoon, the Dallas humidity made the temperature inside the poorly ventilated building almost unbearable. While my chin rested on my clenched fist, I could feel little droplets of perspiration running down from under my armpits along my rib cage. Heat six of the men’s 200 yard individual medley (IM) had just been called to the starting blocks and suddenly, the half-interested crowd of mostly swimmers and coaches turned its attention toward the swimmer in lane three.
Mark Spitz stood relaxed, shaking his right arm first, then shaking his left arm. The powerful muscles dangled loosely from his long arms, as if they were attached to the bones by mere threads. Balancing his left leg on the ball of his foot, with the knee bent slightly, he shook his thigh slowly from side to side until it seemed those big upper leg muscles would also loosen to the point of falling off. Then he did the same motion with his right leg. For a moment, while he stood on the back of the starting block staring at the other end of the pool, contemplating the task ahead, his typical swimmer’s slumped posture, complete with rounded back, small rump and hyperextend knees, created an oversized portrayal of the number 3 painted on the side of his block. Read the rest of this entry »
Déjà Vu … All Over Again
Filed under: Aqua Notes | March 4th, 2010
… as the great philosopher, Yogi Berra once said. Walking into the Joe Perkins Natatorium on the campus of SMU last weekend for the Republic of Texas Masters swim meet, I felt like I was walking into a time capsule. Not much had changed there in the 43 years since I swam my very first AAU National Championships in 1967. Jim Montgomery, a teammate from the 1976 Men’s Olympic Swimming Team, and head coach of the Dallas Area Masters Swim Team, had invited me to give a clinic to the swimmers.
There are certain events in our life that remain vivid in our memories. What we were doing when we watched in horror the events of 9/11 unfold before us, where we were when JFK was shot (for those of us old enough to remember) and for me, sitting in the bleachers awestruck over Mark Spitz breaking American records in this very same pool. It was as if it had happened yesterday, and frankly, other than moving the blocks from the shallow end to the deep end, the place looked identical. Read the rest of this entry »
Swimming Efficiently
Filed under: Aqua Notes | February 23rd, 2010
What does that mean, exactly? To many coaches, swimming efficiently is analogous to distance per stroke. But that is not quite right. Swimming efficiency is really more appropriately defined by the body’s speed in the water versus the energy expended to reach that speed. Here are some examples of what I mean.
In the 200 meter freestyle, former world record holder Pieter Van den Hoogenband would take 38 or 39 strokes per 50 meters, while Ian Thorpe or Michael Phelps would take around 34 strokes per 50 meters. Obviously, Thorpe and Phelps are getting greater distance per stroke, but are they also more efficient?
In the 50 meter freestyle, world record holder Cesar Cielo would take about 34 strokes while former world record holder, Eamon Sullivan would take about 38 strokes for the same distance. Same question.
When we examine efficiency more closely, we see that it really boils down to the same three physical properties that govern all of our swimming techniques, laws of drag, motion and inertia. At The Race Club, we refer often to these three fundamentals. Ultimately, our swimming speed is determined not just by technique, but by fitness, power, mental toughness, fatigue, among other things, so we cannot say that efficiency is based on technique alone. But if we assume that we have a given level of fitness, power, mental toughness, etc at any moment in time, our technique then really becomes the key factor in determining our efficiency. Read the rest of this entry »
Sign up for camp
Click to go to the form.
Sign up for newsletter
Click for details.
Follow us on Twitter
Friend us on Facebook
Join us on YouTube- More on our Lifestream